An international symposium organised by the Department of Architecture at the University of Westminster in conjunction with SOAS Seminars on Turkey

The making of modern Ankara is a momentous yet oft-neglected episode in twentieth-century history. The transformation of this ancient Anatolian town into the capital of the Turkish Republic captured the world’s attention during the interwar period, when Ankara became a laboratory of modernism and nation building. Largely designed by European architects, the new capital embodied the reformist ethos of a secular state firmly projected towards the West. Today, as this sprawling city of over four millions seeks to reinvent its identity, its modern development is the subject of growing scholarship and public interest. The half-day symposium brings together a panel of scholars from architecture, planning, art history, heritage, and Turkish studies to revisit the making of modern Ankara in a cross-disciplinary perspective, while also debating its legacy on the eve of the Republic’s 90th anniversary.Continue reading SYMP The Making of Modern Ankar: Space, Poitics, Representation, University of Westminster, UK 23.11.2012 2-7pm

What is the future for the Korean peninsula, north and south, in the world of 2032? What are some major drivers of change that will create the Korea of 2032? What are possible scenarios for urbanisation and Korean cities? How will an immersive digital environment affect Korean culture and economy? What will the grey shift mean for Korean society and infrastructure in 2032?

The British Association for Korean Studies will hold a Workshop at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, on 17 November 2012 on the topic of ‘Korea’s Place in the World: Now and Twenty Years Hence’. We invite paper presenters to turn their

expertise to the future, particularly in the fields of urbanisation, demography, and the digital revolution, and consider Korea as a case study. We will favour proposals that address the impact of technology on society and social change, and papers from post-graduate students are particularly welcome. All full papers submitted will be considered for publication in the Papers of the British Association for Korean Studies, after a peer review.

Deadline for abstracts: 1 September 2012
Deadline for full papers: 1 November 2012 (for those with an intention towards publication in BAKS Papers)

Contact for Workshop:
Dr. Owen Miller
SOAS, University of London
(om4@soas.ac.uk http://soas.ac.uk)

Theme and Scope
As part of an AHRC/DFG-funded Anglo-German research project on the history of urban violence in the modern Middle East, this international conference seeks to develop new discussions on the relationship between public violence and urban politics, societies and cultures – a topic that despite its importance and relevance to contemporary events has not yet been the subject of systematic academic interest. For this conference, we wish to bring together a core of established and young historians working on the Middle East, and invite a number of academics specialising on other regions and disciplines, including the social sciences, urban studies and philosophy. The aim is to foster innovative understandings of urban violence informed by comparative and interdisciplinary approaches.

Call for Papers
The conference is open to papers dealing with cities and towns of the Arab world, Iran and the Ottoman Empire/Turkey in the early modern and modern periods, approximately from the late 18th Century to the 1960s. Contributions dealing with later periods will be given consideration provided that they have a very strong historical focus. We do not impose any limitations on the forms of violence considered, as long as they are related to the public arena. We ask that proposed contributions consider one or more of the following themes:

* Public violence as event, calendars of violence
The relationship between violence and historical change has engaged many scholars, from Charles Tilly’s focus on war and state making in pre-modern Europe to Franz Fanon’s writings on colonial history as one predicated upon violence. The conference seeks to explore this theme in relation to the Middle Eastern city with a focus on the dynamics and actors of specific violent events. In what ways can these actors and events be analysed as reflecting changes in the urban socio-political order and/or as anticipating such changes at crucial junctures in the history of empires and states? The temporal aspects of urban violence as event can be further nuanced by taking into consideration the specific political, social and religious calendars of individuals and groups involved.

* Order and disorder, multiple logics of violence
The ways in which urban actors such as state, colonial and imperial administrations, military and paramilitary groups, police forces and different types of crowds organise, manage, represent and interpret violence is key to understand the dynamics and multiple logics of violent events as a breach of public order. As part of these multiple logics, violence can also be read as one of the options for agency. Can we for instance discern patterns when peaceful means of contestation turn violent? To this end, we invite contributions dealing with: institutional, structural and operational aspects of violence as linked to legal, bureaucratic, social, political and military arrangements that sustain urban public order, and their change over time; or semantics and symbolic aspects of violence based on narratives on violent events and actors in written and oral sources.

* Urban violence as a form of spatial politics
What has been recently defined as the ‘space turn’ in social studies has demonstrated that the organisation of spatial relations is a constitutive process of violent action. In approaching the city as a theatre of violent acts, different localities might be considered: the street, the square, the neighbourhood, and the wider conurbation to include rural areas and relevant trans-local settings. In this context contributors are also encouraged to investigate the symbolic meaning of urban space and the relationship between public violence and the spatial transformation of cities in the early modern and modern eras as a result of spontaneous urbanisation (and sub-urbanisation) and urban planning.

Submissions
Submissions should include: name of presenter; academic position and institutional affiliation; title of the paper; and contact information (please include e-mail address and telephone number) – all in one Word document – and an abstract of no more than 400 words, in a separat Word document. The two files should be emailed together to Nelida Fuccaro (nf2@soas.ac.uk) and Rasmus Christian Elling (re13@soas.ac.uk) no later than 1st June 2012. We expect to send notification for accepted abstracts by 1st July 2012.

It is important that the abstract includes: 1) a clear indication of how the contribution relates to the themes outlined in the call for papers; 2) some indication of sources used; and 3) a brief elaboration on methodology.

Participants are asked to submit a paper by 1st December 2012 to be circulated before the conference. The organisers expect to provide accommodation and reimbursement of travel expenses for participants although we might ask for a contribution towards overseas airfares.

Timeline
1st June 2012: Deadline for abstract submissions
1st July 2012: Notification of accepted abstracts
1st December 2012: Deadline for submission of full paper
13th-15th February 2013: Conference, SOAS

Organizers
The conference is part of the research project Urban Violence in the Middle East: Between Empire and Nation-State, jointly funded by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the German Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. This event is convened by Nelida Fuccaro (SOAS) and Rasmus Christian Elling (University of Copenhagen / SOAS).

Rasmus Christian Elling

University of Copenhagen / SOAS

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Africa is experiencing an unprecedented urban growth. It is estimated that between 2005 and 2030, the urban population of sub-Saharan Africa will double and more than half of the total population will be urbanised.
While African cities become more and more important internationally, as nodal economic centres of production and exchange, the rapid and often uncontrolled urban expansion poses many challenges. Existing urban infrastructures are usually inadequate to respond to the demographic pressure, adding precariousness to urban livelihoods. Informal settlements are growing and governments often don’t have the resources and capacities to cope with these challenges and development interventions often prove to be inadequate to address the many socio-political and economic issues.Continue reading SEMINAR: African City seminar series, SOAS, London